I used to see television like that. When I got to college, I didn't watch television. At all. TJ and I were proud of our severance from the tube, and I didn't start watching television again until my life was kind of spinning out of my control, and someone turned me on to Arrested Development. I was proud because I was going to finally be "an intellectual" or whatever, deriving my pleasure from the books I read and the people I would encounter. And then, you know, I wasn't. So I turned to television and there it was - people I wanted to know. Gob and Michael and George Michael, et al - and ensemble cast who I wanted to watch the plights of.
I didn't do much my Spring quarter of freshman year other than sit in my room and watch that show, the Office and (I'm embarrassed to admit, actually) My Name is Earl. I emerged from that year in a haze, going back home and working at Jamba Juice, disillusioned with the college experience and hoping that the next year would be better.
It was. I moved. I got new friends and integrated them with old ones, I started new projects. I became someone closer to who I am now, I think - and I realized what television could be to me - it's a way into the discussion. The cultural discussion, that is - the blueprint of humanity that we are all trying to look at from a bird's eye view, an amalgamation of television, the news, the people around us, the city we live in, the music we listen to, the movies we see, the way we form words in our conversation - sentences.
It was from there that I realize that television is not evil, it's just a facet of the multi-faceted diamond of life, given to us by (I'm not finishing this metaphor, you get it.) And ever since, I've seen television as two things - one, it's the door to new relationships with new people, be them fictional or real. Yes, I believe I have a relationship with Ned from Pushing Daisies - he is someone I know. I let him into my house, he makes pies that I emulate. I root for him. I hope he gets the girl. But Ned is also someone that I get to talk about, to someone else, someone real. Me and the person sitting next to me on the couch both get the chance to talk about him afterwards, talk about what happened to him and what we hope will happen to him in the future.
And then we get up, we take a walk and we go get a cup of coffee. We, the real person and I, talk about real people. We might even compare Ned to someone we know, and vice versa. We might even compare Ned to someone we don't know in real life. Do you see what I mean? Am I making myself clear? Everything bad, like television, can be good for you - it can be another way to get to know how you're living your life. It can provide a side of the venn diagram to which you compare your life. It can be a story that I want to emulate - not in plot, maybe, but in style and grace.
There is grace to the plot of Lost - there is a serenity to the way the men of Sterling Cooper talk to each other and belittle their women. There is (was) beauty to behold in the world of Pushing Daisies, and laughs to be shared with the friends of How I Met Your Mother. All of these things, all of these escapes - they aren't really escapes. You don't turn off your television because you want to turn off a facet of your life, you turn it off because your going to take those relationships and apply them to your real life, in whatever small way.
And yes, I still think it should be small. That's the insidious bit of television - there is always another show to watch, there are always a new group of friends to be letting into your living room. But there are also books to be read, movies to watch, and mostly, mostly, MOSTLY people to talk to these things about with. And that's really what it's all about - it's finding the people who will share in these things the way you share them with yourself. And I find that all the time. And that's why television isn't evil - if you don't let it be.
amen.
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